Lock and Load prep - Part 1

We're going to take a break from your regularly scheduled blogging this week. Unfortunately, I wasn't actually able to get down to the gaming store this week to continue my Mammoth battle reports. So I guess you'll just have to wait until next week to see if I can manage to essence blast a Mammoth all over an enemy caster.

With all these fun new releases coming out, and all my playing with proxied models, I haven't been focusing very much on my competitive lists. I've been dabbling with Ret, and playing a lot of my casters that are more fun to play, but not really the ones I reach for in tournaments. Unfortunately, that got me a bit rusty with my standard casters (as evidenced by my pMorghoul and eMakeda battle reports...). And with Lock and Load coming up in a mere two months, I need to start focusing a bit.

Over the next two months, I will be trying to nail down some choices on what casters and lists I want to use for Lock and Load (and WarGamesCon the very next weekend). And of course once I get my casters picked, I need some serious practice with them. I'll be talking about my lists and prep on my blog as I go.

Mammoth batreps, Part 10 - Xerxis

For the secnd game this week I pulled out Xerxis, hoping to make up for the dissapointing game with eMakeda. Xerxis seems like a pretty obvious choice with the Mammoth. he can get it up to stupid levels of melee power if needed and then helps its survivability with Defender's Ward and the defensive side of his feat. I think that going into this year's Con season, Xerxis + Mammoth is going to be my go-to third list for any 3 list events.

This list is one I'm actually pretty excited about. the normal package works really nicely with Xerxis and leaves 9 points. Xerxis obviously has no trouble with taking down single high arm targets, so I figure he needed a bit of help against infantry. to deal with this I added a rhinodon and Master Tormentor.

For this battle, Xerxis and the Mammoth would be going up against their big test. Can the best armor cracking list in Skorne, and possibly in the game, handle the new fad in high armor?


My List

Xerxis
* Mammoth
* Krea
* Gladiator
* Rhinodon

Master Tormentor
Agonizer
Willbreaker
Max Nihilators
min paingivers

Mammoth batreps, Part 9 - eMakeda

Or, the day I realized how much I still need to learn about playing Skorne. This week I played another 2 games with the Mammoth, and with 2 of the casters I was most looking forward to using it with: eMakeda and Xerxis. Unfortunately, I was having one of those days where for one reason or another I just wasn't able to concentrate on my games like I normally can.

How bad was it? well, bad enough that I considered for a moment just scrapping this game and trying again next week with the same caster. But I already decided I was going to do a write-up for each game I played while play-testing the Mammoth, so I'm going to write it up anyways. There were a few interesting things that came up in this game, so hopefully it's still worth a read even if it makes me look like a terrible Skorne player.

for this game I brought eMakeda with the same package I've been using. I really like the Mammoth package, and when I do have a mammoth, it will likely always be run with this same group of models. they just work together really well. eMakeda has 9 points left after the Package, so she took and Archdidon and a Soulward. My opponent this time was our group's main Cryx player (known as SpiderBite on the forums), and one of our top 3 or 4 players in the group. He was running a slightly different version of the Mortenebra Tier 4 list (has anyone reading this ever played against Mortenebra outside of her tier? I sure haven't)


My List 

Gargantuans: Hordes Initial Thoughts

Gargantuans: Hordes Initial Thoughts

Looks like Christmas came early this year! Legion got the Sleigh, and Skorne got the presents. As I'm sure everyone knows, Gargantuans came out this week, and with it a bunch of new goodies for all of the Hordes factions. Flipping through the new entries, it looks like everyone got some really useful new models.

Of course, as a Skorne player I have very little room to talk about anything that other factions got. and I'm too giddy about all my new stuff to care much about what other people got! I'm going to try to go through each of the new entries and give a first impression on how useful I think they will be in Skorne. Of course, take all of this with a grain or two of salt, as we'll need a lot more playtesting before we can say anything for sure on these new models.

Mammoth batreps, Part 8 - Zaal

Part 2 of my catching up on reports from last week. We're nearing the end of the list of casters, and it seems like most of the casters that I have been playing the most are at the bottom of the stack. This report is using Supreme Aptimus Zaal, who has quickly become one of my favorite casters. I didn't start him right away, once again due to listening too much to rankings on the forums. you only really hear about Zaal as a counter to Terminus (which he's fine at) or as a way for people to dust of Ancestral Guardians and Immortals (which he supports better than anyone).

I finally got around to playing him and was (pleasantly) surprised by him. not only is he incredibly powerful, but he's a blast to play. I've never played a caster that actually WANTS you to kill all his dudes. I throw infantry at my opponent and just smile and start handing out soul tokens when they die. then I started getting good at the Kovass. probably 80-90% of my Zaal games have ended with a Last Stand Kovass eating a caster. Zaal quickly found a spot in my tournament lists as a second caster to eMakeda. Heading in to the 2013 'con season, he's moving on to become my go-to caster.

I'm not entirely sure how to view Zaal with the Mammoth. at first glance, he honestly doesn't do anything spectacular. the Mammoth doesn't need the feat to kill almost anything, and last stand seems like a bad idea on 20 points of raw overkill. Zaal does offer a nice Armor buff, or the ability to load my mammoth up and still use counter-blast via awakened spirit. But is an infantry-based caster going to actually want a 20-point beatstick beast?

I ran him a bit different than my other mammoth games. Zaal doesn't want too many beasts, and he really doesn't come into his own without a few Ancestral Guardians. So I decided to try out the ranged Mammoth package again, dropping the Gladiator for a Raider and soulward. I then used the last 10 points for 2 Ancestral Guardians (AGs) and Hakaar.

My List 

Zaal
* Mammoth
* Krea
* Raider

Hakaar
2 AGs
Soulward
Agonizer
Willbreaker
Max nihilators
min paingivers

Mammoth batreps, Part 7 - pMorghoul

Due to a very busy week/weekend, I'm a little late writing up reports from this past week. I played 2 games, one with pMorghoul and one with Zaal. Hopefully I can remember enough detail to make a decent report out of those two games, though the second battle probably won't get posted until at least Wednesday (which is of course the day I'll be playing the next game on the list). I may also be writing an article on ym reactions to the new releases that come out on Wednesday, though that topic is being beaten to death across the internet right now. I'll probably at least cover my thoughts on Skorne releases.

Back on topic, my first game last week was using Master Tormentor Morghoul. As always, I brought the "mammoth package" that I've been playing with. Morghoul of course comes with a whopping 7 beast points, which gives a nice neat 11 points on top of the standard package. normally there are certain models I would take with Morghoul, but tossing in Tiberion with the Mammoth was too tempting. I ended up playing one of our local Ret players who was running a Tier 4 Rahn list, using the Fires From on High tier list from NQ.

My List 

pMorghoul
* Mammoth
* Krea
* Gladiator
* Tiberion

Agonizer
Willbreaker
Max nihilators
min paingivers

Mammoth batreps, Part 6 - Naaresh

This week I actually played 2 games with the same Naaresh list. For the first game, my opponent was trying out Lylyth3 for the first time, along with an Archangel. The Mammoth ended up doing almost nothing during the game, killing 3 striders then getting death chilled for a turn. he didn't have enough shooting to death chill other big targets, though, and Naaresh's feat cost him his Archangel and Angelius without the Mammoth doing anything. I decided that game wasn't going to be a very good representation of the Mammoth with Naaresh, especially considering it was the first time my opponent had even proxied Lylyth3.

So as soon as that game was over, I got a game with the same list, table and scenario against one of our local Circle players. for this game, he ended up going with epic Kaya and a full contingent of Warpwolves.

My List 

Naaresh
* Mammoth
* Krea
* Gladiator
* Cyclops Brute

Agonizer
Willbreaker
Max nihilators
min paingivers
min paingivers
Totem Hunter